Sermons on important subjects by Rev. Paul C. Jong

Fruit of the Holy Spirit

<
Galatians 5:15-26 >

ďBut if
you bite and devour one another, beware
lest you be consumed by one another! I
say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you
shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
For the flesh lusts against the Spirit,
and the Spirit against the flesh; and
these are contrary to one another, so
that you do not do the things that you
wish. But if you are led by the Spirit,
you are not under the law. Now the works
of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery,
fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry,
sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies,
outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions,
dissensions, heresies, envy, murders,
drunkenness, revelries, and the like;
of which I tell you beforehand, just as
I also told you in time past, that those
who practice such things will not inherit
the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self-control. Against such there is no
law. And those who are Christís have crucified
the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live in the Spirit, let us also
walk in the Spirit. Let us not become
conceited, provoking one another, envying
one another.Ē

In todayís Scripture passage, the Apostle Paul spoke about
the life led by the Spirit and the life of living in the flesh. Donít we have
both of these? However, what we the righteous wish for the most is to live by
bearing the fruit of the Spirit. It is said, ďBut the fruit of the Spirit
is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self-control. Against such there is no lawĒ (Galatians 5:22-23). Hence,
the fruit of the Spirit is such things like love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control as listed just now,
and there are about nine, roughly counting. The Lord told us to live by bearing
the fruit of the Spirit.

Regarding the fleshly life of people, the Apostle Paul said
that it is the result of the works of the flesh. However, regarding the works
of the Spirit, he didnít say that they are just works, but rather, he said that
they are the fruit of the Spirit. The works of the flesh that you know refers
to works that can be done through human motives, efforts or means. Also, all
things such as sorcery, hatred, adultery, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, and
the like are works that come out of human flesh. However, since the fruit of
God is something born through God, they are not works. By dwelling in our hearts
as the Spirit, our Lord allows us to bear the fruit of the Spirit.

What I want to clearly point out and speak about first is that
people who havenít received salvation from all sins can never bear the fruit
of the Spirit. If sinners who are not righteous try to bear the fruit of the
Spirit, they would fail spiritually. If something that isnít an apple tree tries
to bear apples, it would fail. Please think about this once. Something that
isnít an apple tree cannot bear the fruit of an apple tree. It is like a sinner,
in whom the Holy Spirit does not dwell, trying to bear the fruit of the Spirit,
and he would be a dreamer who dreams about something that can never be possible.

Nevertheless, there are cases where even the righteous live
by following their own flesh. Although we have received the remission of sins,
there are instances when we follow the works of the flesh because we are still
in flesh. However, one unique thing the righteous bear is the fruit of the Spirit,
something the sinners cannot bear.

What Does God Want from Us?

God wishes for us to bear the fruit of the Spirit and He gives
us the strength to bear. It is said that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, and so on. These are not things that are inherent in people. True love
is not something that is in people, but rather, it is something that is in God.
Because the love that God has for us is inside the hearts of those who believe
in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we are able to carry out Godís love
and bear the fruit of the Spirit. So-called fruit of the Spirit that God has
given us is the expression of the true love that God has given us.

Godís love! The love that God has for us! That love allowed
us to receive salvation from the sins of the world. I wish for you to think
about Godís love with your hearts. Without Godís love and the gospel of the
water and the Spirit, could you and I have been able to receive the remission
of sins? If it were not for Godís love, how could we have received salvation
from sin? I am saying that we should think about Godís love instead of thinking
about what we have to do.

The love of God! That love saved you and me from all our sins.
Because God so loves us, He came to this earth in flesh, bore all the sins of
the world by receiving the baptism from John the Baptist, died on the Cross,
and resurrected amongst the dead in 3 days to save us from sins. Now, Jesus
Christ sits on the right side of the throne of God the Father, and He said that
He would come to this world again. This gospel of the water and the Spirit is
the greatest unsparing gift that God has given to His loved ones.

Because Godís love is in our hearts, the remission of sins
and the Spirit has come into our hearts. By giving the Spirit as a gift to those
who believe in the Lord and are born again by the gospel of the water and the
Spirit, God has made them the people of God. God wants to take in those who
believe in Godís love, which came by the gospel of the water and the Spirit,
as the people of God.

The first three kinds of fruit of the Spirit are love, joy
and peace. Godís love saved you and me from the sins of the world. That is why
Godís love is referred to as the fruit of the Spirit. Love as the fruit of the
Spirit saves souls from sins by spreading the gospel of the water and the Spirit
that God has given us. The gospel of the water and the Spirit is none other
than Godís love. God saved us by having us receive His love by the gospel of
the water and the Spirit because He wished to save all the sinners through us
who believe. Therefore, it is the case that those who have received salvation
bear the fruit of the Spirit.

Joy in Our Hearts

The second fruit of the Spirit is joy. Joy refers to pleasure
of the heart. Our hearts are pleased and happy due to the love that God gave
us. What joy do we have God has cleansed our sins once and for all by the gospel
of the water and the Spirit? Because God loved us first, He saved us from all
sins, and also, because God gave us happiness first, we are able to feel happy
in our hearts. Those of us with true joy can share with all people this delightful
and pleasant joy of the heart.

We should not try to lead a good life of faith by achieving
and accomplishing some fleshly works. It cannot be said that one leads a good
life of faith by doing so, but rather, one can only live well only by the faith
of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. True life of faith is
bearing the fruit of the Spirit by believing in the gospel of the water and
the Spirit. A man of faith spreads the joy to all people by being happy. He
can do so with joy because he believes that God loves him, saved him from sins,
made him His son, and reconciled with him by breaking down the wall of sin that
had existed between God and him through Jesus Christ. If we think about God-given
peace, happiness, salvation, and our lives of faith, the fruit of the Spirit
will be revealed by itself. If we live by ruminating over Godís love, joy will
overflow in our hearts.

We must live by ruminating over the gift that God gave us.
That is precisely how to bear the fruit of the Spirit. Thinking about the gifts
that God has given us in our hearts and believing in them is precisely doing
the works of God. By appreciating the God-given grace in the gospel of the water
and the Spirit, we can truly make peace with our enemies and also live happily
in this dreary world by faith. In the world that we live in, there is basically
no happiness, but due to the joy received from God, we are able to live by giving
out joy to people. Because we have received love from God, we are able to share
that love.

Dear fellow believers, as I have told you in the beginning,
people who havenít received the remission of sins have no relations with the
fruit of the Spirit by any means. They can only do the works of the flesh. Of
course, both the thoughts of the Spirit and the thoughts of the flesh arise
even in a person who has received the remission of sins, but the sinners cannot
help but pursue only the works of the flesh.

What is the works of the flesh? It is doing what flesh feels
happy about, such as lewd acts, filthy things, sensuality, and others. I said,
even we the righteous could be pursuing such works of the flesh. However, we
know what the works of our flesh are and we do not pursue the works of the flesh
to the end. The works of the flesh are merely the works passing by.

As those who have been born again, to walk by following the
good pleasure of Godís will is the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit
is a precious gift that God has given especially to us, the righteous. God gives
us peace, and clothes us the born-again of water and the Spirit with His love,
joy, happiness, and pleasure. God also gives us the other fruit such as longsuffering,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control through His Son.
We first have to believe that God has saved all humanity by the gospel of the
water and the Spirit with His longsuffering and mercy. And then, we must bear
in mind that God gave all the fruit of the Spirit to those who have received
salvation by faith.

We remember so clearly the fact that God has saved us from
sins and that He gave us the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We are joyful
because of Godís love and because we believe in the fact that we have received
all blessings due to His salvation from sins. We cherish the works that God
has done for all humanity in our hearts, and so God gives us salvation because
He is patient for a truly long time.

Godís Kindness in Our Hearts

Todayís Scripture passage also lists kindness, goodness, and
faithfulness as the fruit of the Spirit. This kindness refers to God taking
pity on us. With regard to relationships between people, there are those who
deserve to be pitied and there are those ones who do not deserve such pity.
But the kindness of God is reflected in the fact that He takes pity on such
people who do not deserve any pity from a humanís point of view. This virtue
is kindness.

Kindness implies the great mercy of God. He treats us with
merciful kindness. Then, what does it mean to render such great kindness? It
is found in a situation where certain people have may have harmed us, but we
take pity on them. This is the kindness of God. ďStill, God loved you and saved
even you from sins.Ē Those of us who have the faith of believing in the gospel
of the water and the Spirit wish for all the sinners to receive salvation from
sins. We have to give the gospel of the water and the Spirit to those who have
twisted nature and are of the most pitiful in this world, so that such people
can receive the remission of sins. This is the God-given duty of born-again
Christians. To spread the salvation to those who oppose and treat us harshly
is the kindness of God that the righteous should render. Because sinners would
go to hell by remaining as a sinner, we must continue to convince them to receive
salvation by the gospel of the water and the Spirit.

The desire to live meekly in our hearts due to the gospel of
the water and the Spirit is another fruit of the Spirit that God gave us. God
does not treat us with evil. We can now go on living by bearing the fruit of
the Spirit because God took pity on us and treated us with goodness and meekness.
Because we have received everything from God, we are able to bear the fruit
of goodness by Godís love. Since we have received the nine fruits of the Spirit,
we give out what we have received through God while ruminating it our hearts.
Because a cow has four stomachs, it can chew the cud repeatedly. As such, we
are blessed to be thankful and to live by cherishing and ruminating about all
of the nine fruits of the Spirit given to us through the grace and love of God.

Also, for us to live with Godís love and all His blessings
is to live amidst the fruit of the Spirit. Dear fellow believers, do you understand?
Other fruits of the Spirit are faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We
are faithful to God because Jesus, God Himself, was faithful to God the Father
to save us from sins. Since we have received such great love, it is only right
that we should be faithful to God.

For those of us who are righteous, the gentleness in our hearts
comes from God. Originally, our character overflows with fastidious individualities.
But in spite of our weaknesses, we are able to get along in harmony with each
other in Godís Church, and we realize this is only possible because of God.
In looking back, there is something very strange in those of us who are born
again. There are times when a person is very gentle, even if he or she had not
been such a gentle person in the past. Looking into it, we are so gentle because
the Spirit of the Lord is in our hearts.

Because all people love the pleasures of their flesh, they
tend to seek and chase after these pleasures. This is the fundamental nature
of the man of flesh who is without the Holy Spirit. Essentially, people do not
have the gentleness of God. From looking only at the flesh, humans are the brood
of evildoers by nature, and thus originally humans are a species that has no
self-control and no fundamental goodness. Because there was no goodness within
them, they created idols and religions to pursue their own goodness. What then
do all the religions in this world seek? They seek idolatry and hypocrisy.

By His very disposition, God Himself loved us and saved us
from sins 2000 years ago by the water, the blood, and the Spirit. Only this
love of God is the utterly gentle and virtuous goodness. For those who believe
in Godís love contained in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the Spirit
of God resides in their hearts, and God allows them to carry out the works of
the Spirit. It means that, if the Spirit is within a person, the Spirit will
control that personís heart and make him or her gentle, even if human beings
are originally terribly ruthless and bad natured. In the same way when we believe
in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and receive the remission of sins,
the Spirit enters our hearts and uses us in the works of God by making us quite
virtuous, self-controlling, and gentle.

We may oftentimes expose the works of the flesh, but for those
who were born again by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit,
the spirit is gentle. We should neither injure nor absolutely ruin others. On
the contrary, we should always think about what would that person needs, and
ways we can help that person. As the Bible says, ďThe wicked borrows and
does not repay, But the righteous shows mercy and givesĒ (Psalm 37:21),
we the righteous should give in plenty. We provide help by using numerous things
that God gave us. If there are no material things, we do it by faith, truth
and love. Just as Peter healed a lame man by saying, ďSilver and gold I do
not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
rise up and walkĒ (Acts 3:6), we the born-again also can raise sinners from
their sinful bed to walk in the light by giving them the gospel Truth. We also
say to people who still sit amid the darkness of desperation, ďMoney, I donít
have. I have nothing, and I donít even have the honor that you seek. Yet, what
I do have are the Truth, love, gentleness, self-control, joy, and others that
God has given me. Arise and shine! I give you freely all I have received from
God.Ē

Our flesh, even though we have been born again, is essentially
evil. However, after Jesus Christ came inside us through the Holy Spirit, the
fruits of the Spirit is born within us. The Spirit allows us to bear nine kinds
of the fruit of the Spirit. It is because God had given us all nine kinds as
a gift, that we are able to bear these nine kinds of the fruit of the Spirit.
He allows us to become gentle in due time, possess joy and happiness at a proper
time, and indulge in Godís love frequently. We are able to continue to live
because of that love.

Want
to read more sermons on the Galatians?Please click the banner below
to get your free book on the Galatians.

How do we lead our lives of faith? We lead our lives of faith
by appreciating in our hearts what God has given us and also by bearing the
fruit of the Spirit as He desires. As it was said that there is no law against
such things, there is no way for us not to give to others Godís love that we
have received. Because the righteous live by believing in their hearts the works
that God has done, they are drawn towards the desires of the Spirit.

When we are doing work, it is good if we are in Christís love
and we follow His love, even if our work is not accomplished to perfection.
We must lead a life of faith by believing and following the grace of salvation
in which God had clothed us. If we live by appreciating Godís love in our hearts,
by passing out this love of God to our neighbors, and by also receiving love
from our brothers and sisters, then this is the true life of faith, the life
which bears the fruit of the Spirit.

We all must lead a life of faith led by the Spirit by the gospel
of the water and the Spirit.